We visited the five famous Utah national parks during the Labor Day week, i.e. Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Park. We flew to Salt Lake City, drove from east to west, and went home from Las Vegas.

Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City is simply huge. The airport is spacious. The streets are wide. There are also many churches around. Zoltan was joking that you could stay here for weeks and visit a new church every day. All the homeless people were gathering outside a cathedral church. The temperature was still high in September. With barely any trees in the city except some rich residential areas, we rarely met anyone on the street on a Thursday morning.

Arches National Park

Arches is about 3.5hr drive away from Salt Lake City. We went to Devil’s Garden first, where we needed to climb through some mountains. The view there is beyond description. The trail covers several arches, Landscape arch and Double arch are must-see. Navajo arch is like a cave as it lies next to a mountain. Partition arch is huge and stands on a cliff.

It was more than 100 Fahrenheit in the middle of the day. After Devil’s Garden, we decided not to take any long hikes.

Some other viewpoints worth mentioning are: Sand Dune arch, an arch in a sand dune; Delicate arch, the one that usually appears in the park pins or posts; Windows arch, multiple tall arches in a central area; Balanced rock, a high standing hill with a huge rock on the top.

Campground 1

We camped in the Sun Outdoors Canyonlands Gateway for the first two nights. The campground is 10min away from the Arches and 20min away from the Canyonlands. It was in the middle of deserts but surprisingly had a swimming pool. It was pleasant to do some swimming after a hot day of hiking.

Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands has three main districts, which are far away from each other. The Maze requires 4WD and the roads are mostly unpaved. The Needles is quite far away from where we were. So we only visited the Island in the Sky district. Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef are relatively under-developed. The restrooms in the Island in the Sky visitor center were primitive.

Shafer overlook

The Shafer viewpoint has an amazing overview of the canyon. There are roads that wind down to the bottom of the canyon. We saw batches of jeeps lining up in the road on the way to the park. They were probably coming here for back-country adventures.

Mesa arch

The mesa arch viewpoint overlooks the mesa around the Green River and Colorado River. Other viewpoints in the district, such as the Green River Overlook, are for the same scene from different perspectives.

Campground 2

The second site for our trip was Sand Creek RV Park & Campground, located in the edge of a tiny tiny town Torrey. This campground is a cute backyard campground with very limited tent sites.

Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef is about 2 hr drive away from Canyonlands. The attractions are loosely distributed. We spent most of the time in the scenic drive and the Grand Wash within it. In the beginning of the drive, there is the Gifford House, which consists of a tiny museum owned by the Gifford family, and a gift store. The store sells freshly baked fruit pies, which seemed to be very popular. When we came back from the scenic drive at noon and wanted to try the pie, they had already been sold out. The house is often visited by bucks. We saw several in the short stay there.

The other memorial spot was Cassidy arch trail inside the Grand Wash. The trail is short but goes up to a peak, where the arch is hidden. From the middle of the trail, the arch looks more like a cave. From the top, it is totally different.

The scenic drive ends with the Capitol Gorge, which is another peak that requires some hiking to reach. Close to it is the Pleasant Creek. It’s called a creek but was just a road in the dry season. Rivers with no water turns out to be a common scene in the national parks.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon and Zion are pretty well developed compared with the previous three parks. They have shuttles going through the park, clean bathrooms in all the main attraction points, and drinkable water in many places. We did not have much time in Bryce, so we simply followed the park guide and visited Bryce Point, Inspiration Point, and Sunset Point. These viewpoints are essentially different perspectives to one canyon. As usual, the beauty of the canyon is breathtaking. The photos simply cannot show the 50% of it. In Sunset Point, we also took Navajo Loop, a short but steep hike to the bottom of the canyon. The bottom is not as fantastic as viewing from the top. Actually it’s similar to the hills in Capitol Reef. But the experience of hiking deep down to the bottom made it worth it.

Campground 3

For the rest of the trip, we stayed in the Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort. It is a fancy resort with all sorts of entertainment. Our favorite was the pool area, which had two swimming pools with slides, and two hot tubs.

Zion National Park

Zion is the most crowded among all the five. The visitor center parking lot was almost always full. As a result, we parked our car in the museum and walked to the nearby shuttle stop. We did several hikes here but the most fabulous ones are Angels Landing and the Narrows.

Angels Landing requires a lottery permit after the pandemic. The first part of the trail is steep but paved. The second part is strenuous as you will need to use the chains. Looking at the trail from a distance, it is scary. But it is actually not as narrow as I expected.

The Narrows is accessible from the last shuttle stop - Temple of Sinawava. The beginning is a simple walk along the river. Fat rock squirrels were running around all over the place and asking for food from humans. After about 1 mile starts the actual trail. We did not do much plan and was surprised to find that we needed to walk in the river. Most people used rented water boots or just their foot ware. We did not have other shoes other than our hiking boot, so we chose to wade the water in bare feet. The bottom of the river is mostly rocky with a few places covered with sand. It was painful to walk on the rocks with bare feet, but we held on for 3 hours and had to leave early to catch the flight. The hike is in the bottom of the valley, so a lot of shade. Also with the chilly water, it was a pretty comfortable hike in this weather.

Final Words

This is another beautiful trip. The five national parks are unique and charming in their own way. We finished the 30hr podcast of the Japanese history in WW2 in this trip.